For many applications, the roughness features remaining on surfaces after polishing are required to be orders of magnitude smaller than the wavelength of light. It is difficult to determine in such a case when a material has been polished adequately because the present means of assessing roughness features smaller than the wavelength of light are either slow or indirect. We have invented a rapid means of detecting surface roughness features smaller than the wavelength of light.
Our invention detects roughness features rapidly by monitoring the fluorescence from molecules that adhere to roughness features. We have invented a rapid means of detecting surface roughness features smaller than the wavelength of light. The invention relates to tagging a protein with a dye, only if needed, on a substrate surface.